Competitive Magic: the Gathering Banter/Theorycrafting

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End-Game Guilds

This is my take on a Bant/Midrange deck splashing Evolve for some, what I consider, neat tricks to bring a fresh and unexpected look to the deck. Plus, who doesn’t like to teach an old dog new tricks whenever you can; who knows, maybe the saying is right and it can’t be done, here’s to hoping it’s wrong, though. Lots of acceleration to speed up what you’re doing to keep you from being late to the show.

Many thanks go to a personal friend of mine, Jason, for helping to plant the idea for this deck in my head. Was talking to him earlier tonight about his idea to build an Evolve/Flicker deck, and I’ve had my eyes on Bant Control since I started scoping the meta when my interest in magic was rekindled.

To start, we have the staples of the deck, you know, the movers and shakers that get the party going, the reason everyone else shows up, because who doesn’t want to hang out with these cool cats.

I want to speed the deck up as much as possible, as well as, provide myself with the life and chump blockers necessary to keep the party from ending before it even begins. To do this, Thragtusk and Zegana will be my prime, get it, blink targets with Restoration Angel.

Now, I want to draw as many cards as I possibly can with Zegana, so to do that, I’m going to add Rancor to the deck, one because it gives the potential of an extra two cards coming out of her when she hits the board, as well as giving that extra power and who doesn’t like Trample? Not to mention it’s from Australia, which increases it’s deadliness factor by like 4,000.

If I’m going to be bouncing Zegana to speed up the deck, I obviously don’t want to let all of those counters go to waste when they could go towards fueling even bigger draws when she comes into play, and not to mention, making something much deadlier than it was a few seconds ago. Also, Bioshift will mesh nicely with the two Evolve creatures that RSVP’d to this shindig.

Initially, I thought about running Invisible Stalker, and still might make the switch for it, but I decided I liked the Krasis a little bit better, he’s not Hexproof, but he’s a little harder to kill, and he has Evolve, so he’ll be able to grow from things like Geist, Thragtusk, & Zegana. Gyre Sage found her way into the deck for some added mana acceleration, and ending up beating out her pointy-eared counterpart, Arbor Elf, due to her increased mana gain potential, as well as, the option of using Bioshift to give her counters to something else if that mana isn’t needed later on in the game. Speaking of Hexproof:

Geist is here for a couple of reasons, Hexproof makes him a great target for Bioshift and Rancor if your Krasis just isn’t elusive enough, and keeps finding his way into the graveyard. I’m going to be attacking with him anyway to produce that 4/4 Angel every turn, so there’s no harm in boosting him up whenever I can afford to. Also, the 4/4 Angel coming into play every time he attacks also serves an additional purpose of boosting up my creatures with Evolve, sure, it’s only going to do it a few times before it’s not big enough to satisfy my needs anymore, but once I Bioshift the counters onto a Geist with Rancor, all of a sudden that Angel is back to getting the job done again.

Since, we’ve segued into the acceleration portion of the deck, I’ll go ahead and mention the other party guests from this exclusive society:

Garruk makes it into the deck because of his ability to provide some security for the party, in the way of beast tokens to toss around, and the style points obtained from killing someone with his ultimate, but his real purpose in the deck is card draw. The Pilgrim is there for pure mana acceleration, as well as Farseek.

I mentioned security above, and that will bring us to the last ingredient. If we’re going to keep the party going until six in the morning, here’s what we’re going to do:

If you read the article on my Dimir Control/Mill Deck, then you’ve already heard how I feel about the Charms, and if you didn’t, here is the short version: they’re extremely GOOD and extremely VERSATILE; use them. Selesnya and Simic both add some much needed creature Control, whether it be an answer to the pesky Thundermaw, or something equally as nasty that I have no answer to, or just being cute and bouncing something back to their hand before they can blink it with an Angel. Simic can also be used to bounce my Angel back and keep blinking things. They’re also adding the potential of a nice steroid if I know I won’t need them for Control purposes, as well as some nice protection out of Simic via Hexproof. Oh, is that an Angel of Serenity? How about not. And as always, Oblivion Ring just brings something that can be useful in most anything, board control.

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One thought on “End-Game Guilds”

First, I’ve decided that I feel like Armada Wurm should very much be in the deck, but I just can’t figure out what should be removed in order to place him in the deck.

I feel like Lyev Skyknight, Angel of Serenity and Spell Rupture make solid arguments for being in the Mainboard to provide extra Control. Also, they bring even stronger arguments of being in the Sideboard if not Mainboard.

I also feel like Entreat the Angels could be a very strong card in the deck when it comes to boosting things with Evolve, especially with it’s Mircale, but just not 100% sure if there is enough of the ability featured to make running this card worth it.

Simic Manipulator is another card that I feel could bring a lot to the table in this deck, but again, not sure if it’s pulling to much away from the core of the deck, just to bring more presence to Evolve. Although, it could provide some solid control against things like Thundermaw Hellkite that I’m leaving myself open to in the mid game. It poses the question of it should have a spot in the Sideboard more than it does the Mainboard to be honest.

Both Wolfir Silverheart and Intangible Virtue are cards that I feel like could have a place in the deck, the former moreso than the latter, but I just can’t figure out what would be worth moving them out for, and whether or not they fit better in the Sideboard or Mainboard.